opera – News Stories About opera - Page 3

Newbies' Passion for Opera 'Like Love at First Sight'

Mar 18, 2009 8:30 AM CDT

Newbies' Passion for Opera 'Like Love at First Sight'

Research suggests if you don't swoon first time, opera may not be for you

(Newser) - The passion that opera fans feel for the art form is more akin to love at first sight than a slow-growing desire, Reuters reports. A sociologist focused on fans in the cheap seats who hadn't been brought up on opera, and found they tended to have an intense, explosive attraction...

Rebel Singer
Out to Save
'Dusty' Operas

Feb 24, 2009 5:25 PM CST

Rebel Singer Out to Save 'Dusty' Operas

(Newser) - Natalie Dessay is still butting heads with opera purists after twenty-some years in the business. The zesty soprano, an actor at heart, upsets some critics by adding theatrical gestures and even screams to her roles. "At least it's alive," Dessay says of her style. Opera, on the other...

Troubled NYC Opera Names Dallas Conductor New GM

Jan 15, 2009 7:17 AM CST

Troubled NYC Opera Names Dallas Conductor New GM

Company names Steel new GM after chaotic year

(Newser) - The New York City Opera, the deeply troubled company based at Lincoln Center, has named Dallas-based director and conductor George Steel as its new general manager. The announcement comes after last fall's departure of Gerard Mortier, the Belgian iconoclast who promised a shake-up of the opera but quit before he...

Rock Opera
Humanizes
'Deep Throat'

Oct 15, 2008 2:05 PM CDT

Rock Opera Humanizes 'Deep Throat'

Bumpy life of Deep Throat star hits LA stage

(Newser) - Slut or victim? Porn star or feminist? A Los Angeles stage production tackles the contradictions of Linda Boreman—better known as Linda Lovelace, of 1970s hit Deep Throat, the Los Angeles Times reports. The creators of Lovelace: The Rock Opera “wanted to know Linda as a person, beyond the...

Met Lifts Curtain on Opera You Don't Have to Dress Up for

Oct 15, 2008 10:31 AM CDT

Met Lifts Curtain on Opera You Don't Have to Dress Up for

Icon will stream shows, broadcasts online

(Newser) - New York's Metropolitan Opera will soon be offering a new viewing experience: online streaming of performances dating back to 1937. Next week, on the 125th anniversary of its first show, the Met will unveil its online, on-demand service, reports the New York Times. If you can get past the glitches,...

Live Feeds
Hit High Note
for Operas

glossies

Oct 13, 2008 8:52 PM CDT

Live Feeds Hit High Note for Operas

(Newser) - The age of iPods has drawn opera from its stuffy confines into city streets, cinemas, and websites, Mike Ashman writes in Gramophone. After the BBC was inspired by flashmobbers to broadcast an opera from Paddington Station a few years ago, impresarios caught on: Now opera companies from the Met to...

'Grateful' Symphony Debuts

Jul 27, 2008 2:00 PM CDT

'Grateful' Symphony Debuts

Baltimore to unveil work based on various Dead classics

(Newser) - The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will debut this week an opera derived from the music of the Grateful Dead, on what would have been Jerry Garcia’s 66th birthday. Titled Dead Symphony No. 6, each movement goes truckin' on a different Dead song. The Grateful Dead is “long overdue to...

'The Fly' Morphs Into Opera

Jul 3, 2008 1:35 PM CDT

'The Fly' Morphs Into Opera

Cronenberg classic debuts in Paris

(Newser) - David Cronenberg’s horror classic The Fly has metamorphosed into something new: an opera. This new, unholy horror-opera hybrid was unleashed on Paris last night, garnering at least somewhat enthusiastic applause, Bloomberg reports. Intact were all the things that made the movie memorable: its tragic love plot, hideous monster and,...

No-Longer-Fat Lady Sings Part She Was Denied

Jun 11, 2008 8:34 AM CDT

No-Longer-Fat Lady Sings Part She Was Denied

Slimmed-down Voigt mocks 'little black dress' incident online

(Newser) - In 2004 Deborah Voigt, one of the world's most gifted sopranos, was dismissed from a London production of Ariadne auf Naxos for being too fat to fit in the little black dress that the director insisted was integral to the production. On Monday Voigt, who has gone from a size...

Global Warming, the Opera

May 30, 2008 4:45 AM CDT

Global Warming, the Opera

La Scala plans operatic version of Al Gore's climate change documentary

(Newser) - It started out as a slide show, became an Oscar-winning documentary and best-selling book, and now Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is about to become a full-length opera, reports the AP. Milan's La Scala opera house has commissioned Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli to set Gore's stark warning on global warming...

Vivaldi Opera Revived 278 Years Later

May 4, 2008 5:57 PM CDT

Vivaldi Opera Revived 278 Years Later

Czech musician tracks down long-lost work in Germany

(Newser) - A long-lost opera by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi has resurfaced nearly 280 years after its Prague premiere, BBC reports. Argippo, a tale of love and deception set in an Indian maharaja’s court, was first performed in 1730 but vanished soon after, leaving only a libretto. But that was enough...

Bravo! Met's First Encore in 14 Years Wins
Huge Ovation

Apr 23, 2008 8:09 AM CDT

Bravo! Met's First Encore in 14 Years Wins Huge Ovation

Tenor nails 18 high Cs in new production

(Newser) - Audiences at New York's Metropolitan Opera Monday night were treated to something they hadn't heard in 14 years: an encore. In the Met's new production of Donizetti's La fille du régiment, tenor Juan Diego Flórez nailed the nine high C's of the difficult aria "Ah! Mes Amis"...

Verdi, Naked and Anti-American

Apr 12, 2008 6:51 AM CDT

Verdi, Naked and Anti-American

Austrian Marxist uses opera to slam US capitalism

(Newser) - A German staging of Verdi’s “A Masked Ball” leaves Uncle Sam wearing little but a mask, Der Spiegel reports. In a rebuke of US capitalism, the production parades naked retirees on a set of the World Trade Center's ruins, and offers a female singer with a Hitler mustache...

Pavarotti Lipsynched
Last Performance

Apr 7, 2008 9:02 AM CDT

Pavarotti Lipsynched Last Performance

Late tenor too sick to sing live at Turin Olympics opening ceremony

(Newser) - Lipsynching isn't just for neophytes like Nikki Hilton—none other than tenor Luciano Pavarotti faked his way through his final public performance at the opening of the Turin Winter Olympics, the Guardian reports. In a new book, Pavarotti's conductor and pianist claims that he recorded the cancer-stricken tenor and the...

Famed Tenor di Stefano Dead

Mar 4, 2008 9:53 AM CST

Famed Tenor di Stefano Dead

Brilliant but erratic tenor succumbed to injuries from 2004 attack

(Newser) - Giuseppe di Stefano, the tenor whose short but brilliant career made him an operatic legend, died yesterday at his home near Milan. He was 86. His widow told reporters his death resulted from head injuries dating to 2004, when robbers in Kenya left him temporarily comatose. Di Stefano's superb voice...

Margaret Truman Daniel Dead

Jan 29, 2008 5:20 PM CST

Margaret Truman Daniel Dead

First Daughter went on to act, sing and write

(Newser) - Margaret Truman Daniel died today at 83 after breaking the mold of First Daughter and embarking on careers in singing, acting, and writing, the Los Angeles Times reports. The go-getter braved opera critics as a singer in the 1940s and '50s before acting alongside Jimmy Stewart on radio and television....

Springer Opera Dodges Blasphemy Bullet

Dec 5, 2007 9:33 PM CST

Springer Opera Dodges Blasphemy Bullet

Christian group can't sue BBC director: court

(Newser) - A British court has ruled that the BBC can't be prosecuted for blasphemy for airing Jerry Springer—The Opera, which features scenes set in Hell with Jesus and Satan. The High Court ruled that not only is the opera not blasphemous—because it satirizes a TV show rather than attacking...

Christian Sues Springer Musical for Blasphemy

Nov 21, 2007 6:53 AM CST

Christian Sues Springer Musical for Blasphemy

Pole-dancing Eve doesn't wash with critic

(Newser) - A Christian activist in Britain is battling in court to sue the men behind hit musical "Jerry Springer—The Opera" for blasphemy. The play, which depicts Eve as a pole dancer and Jesus as a diaper-wearing deviant, is a "spiteful, willful denigration of Christian belief," his attorney...

Chinese Opera House Opens

Sep 25, 2007 4:06 PM CDT

Chinese Opera House Opens

(Newser) - Armed ballerinas and a song by former Chinese president Jiang Zemin today celebrate the opening of Beijing's controversial National Grand Theater, a $360 million modern arts complex built in the shadow of the Forbidden City. The Red Detachment of Women, however, is a traditional touch—it's one of eight plays...

High C is a Drink Best Served Bold

Sep 9, 2007 5:00 PM CDT

High C is a Drink Best Served Bold

Pavarotti had blend of talent, self-confidence to hit hard note

(Newser) - Pavarotti’s obits called him “King of the High C’s,” a nickname he earned for hitting a note that many tenors have to fake in falsetto. “It’s the absolute summit of technique,” says a coach. “More than anywhere else in your voice, you...